Edinburgh's bakery star on overcoming MS to build a foodie institution

Founder Michelle Phillips is ‘facing into her disability’ after honour from easyJet founder's foundation

Michelle Phillips goes prepared to London awards

Michelle Phillips and her husband Mike risked it all when they sold their family home to start their dream business in 2010 – a business that has brought pleasure and comfort to countless of Edinburgh natives and visitors ever since.

In just 14 years Mimi’s Bakehouse has become something of an institution in Scotland’s Capital, winning plaudits for its friendly atmosphere and its cakes and pastries, growing in scale, and gathering awards along the way.

And yet it could have all been so very different if Michelle had not benefitted from two big advantages: she persevered – her motto appropriate for a business founded in Leith – allied with the fact that Mimi’s is a family business in a very real sense of that phrase.

Because within just a year of taking the enormous and risky step of shunning home security in favour of their venture, the couple were dealt a blow that might have shattered their aspirations. In 2011 Michelle was diagnosed with the debilitating autoimmune disease that attacks the brain and spine, Multiple Sclerosis.

True grit earns top award

But Michelle refused to succumb, and her family and the team surrounded her with support that continues until this day – and that true grit and entrepreneurial spirit has been recognised by perhaps her most meaningful award to date. Michelle’s business has been awarded £100,000 by the Stelios Philanthropic Foundation, which celebrates and support entrepreneurs with disabilities from across the UK. Michelle gained the distinction as overall runner up in a record-breaking field of 125 applications.

Her story, and that of her family business, could be summed up by two quotes. First, from the American actor and activist Michael J Fox, who has been living with Parkinson’s disease since 1991: “Family isn’t an important thing. It is everything.” And then, from US author Dean Koonz: “Where there is cake, there is hope. And there is always cake…”